The paper discusses the scope for using photometric ellipsometers in e
ngineering processes, namely in measuring instruments for industrial p
urposes. The scheme is presented for a novel ellipsometer in which the
measurement accuracy is improved by factors of more than ten by compa
rison with traditional instruments. This ellipsometer enables one to m
onitor the properties of layered structures with a thickness resolutio
n of 2-5 Angstrom for dielectric layers.